The whole tooth, and nothing but the truth

I'm in a real brain cell slump lately. Last week I forgot: 1. James' kindergarten doctor's check-up and 2. Kyle's school planning conference with parent and guidance counselor. He called me that morning from school. "Uh, Mom . . ." One purpose of this conference is to address concerns, but I wisely refrained from stating I'd like Kyle to develop more responsibility and not be so forgetful.

My losing (my mind) streak continued with this morning's drama. Elise came up the stairs in tears. Her speech was so twisted in sobs that I could hardly understand her. Finally the words "nothing there" and "pillow" and "tooth" took shape.

Oh, no! She'd lost a tooth the day before. Somewhere in the middle of church -- visiting teacher -- choir practice -- make salad -- trip to Grandma's -- white-knuckle drive home -- late arrival -- let kids sleep in clothes, we're all so tired -- it had happened. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I, ahem, I mean the tooth fairy, forgot.

My mind raced. "I'm sure it was the storm," I told her, giving her a hug. "Let's try again tonight."

There's not much worse than knowing you've disappointed your children, even if it's a myth-perpetuating type of letdown. I wanted to make it right, and help her leave for school in a good mood. So while sad Elise was resigned to her breakfast I scrambled through the house looking for paper and writing implement special enough to be used by a fairy but nonetheless untraceable.

I failed miserably -- just a pencil and plain piece of writing paper. But you can't very well call out, "Hey, has anyone seen the glitter gel pens?" in a situation like this. With my left hand providing a foil I wrote a quick ditty about that crazy storm, and what a sweetie Elise is to wait. I signed it Love, T.F.

I motioned Emma down the hall, and we sneaked into my bedroom doorway. "I can't have Elise think I've gone downstairs yet today, so can you take these down to your room?" I asked her, handing her the note and several compensatory coins. She smiled at me conspiratorially, and was about to say something -- something, I'm sure, about how fun it is to be big enough to know better, but to still let the magic live on -- when we heard water running. In my master bathroom. Ten feet away from us.

Quickly I investigated. Elise was in there, of course. "Elise, did you hear us?" I asked.

"Kind of."

Well, I went ahead with the plan anyway. While I chatted with Elise back in the dining room -- "Hey, was it warm enough downstairs last night? I haven't been down there" -- Emma delivered the goods. I also instituted our inaugural bed-making inspection before school to unearth the ruse.

Elise got a real kick out of the tooth fairy's faint script. Together we surmised it must be awfully hard for that teeny fairy to manuever a mighty pencil.

Whether Elise is on to me, I can't say. I may have forever dashed her belief in fairies. But maybe as an adult (or 10-year-old like Emma) she'll look back on this and reflect that the tooth fairy is only human, that she makes mistakes, too, but that those mistakes can be fixed with love.

That will be magic enough.